


Just a Little Faith

by springsdandelion (writergirlie)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/springsdandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta reflects on parenthood and the long road to healing. </p><p>(<i>This is a companion-piece to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/380856">A Dandelion In the Spring</a>. Though not necessary to read the other fic, it does add a little more understanding to the first part of this story. There are also a few nods to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/377419">Out Of the Mouths Of Babes</a>.</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Little Faith

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dying to write another piece featuring daddy!Peeta. Finally, I got inspiration :).

We found out by accident that it would be a girl.

 

Katniss wanted no Capitol doctors involved in any part of this pregnancy, but changed her mind one night, after jerking awake from an especially terrifying nightmare, trembling in my arms and sobbing from harrowing images that continued to chase her into consciousness. Faceless figures snatching our child from her womb. Piercing cries from a disembodied voice. Us, paralyzed, helpless in reaching this tiny being who holds our hearts hostage. And red. Everywhere red. A sea, an ocean of red.

 

It takes what’s left of the fading night to convince her that she’s not lying in a pool of her own blood, that the stillness in her belly only means that our child is sleeping. But even after I manage to succeed in bringing her back from the brink, she insists that we board the first train to the Capitol in the morning, that we seek out the best possible doctors who can give her the reassurance she desperately needs. It seems it will take nothing less than this to make her believe that our child is healthy and growing and thriving—and in no danger of being taken from us.

 

When the images flicker on the screen, she grips my hand tightly—all the fear, all the anxiety, all the worry concentrated in one potent emotion and channeled into every clench she gives my fingers. I bring her hand to my lips and stroke her hair, and eventually, she relaxes, and our eyes well up instantly when the sound of our baby’s rapid flutter of a heartbeat floods the room.

 

“Would you like to know the sex?”

 

Katniss’s face is a mixture of panic and eagerness. She turns to me, the question left unformed on her lips.

 

“It’s up to you,” I tell her. I have no qualms about waiting until the delivery to find out, but I know anxiety threatens to overpower her at every turn, and I want to give her every dose of comfort I possibly can.

 

She starts to nod at the doctor, then quickly blurts out, “No, wait—I’ve changed my mind...”

 

The doctor merely smiles and tells her she understands, but after Katniss gets dressed again and I’m ushering her out the door, we overhear the doctor telling the nurse in hushed tones, “I’ve never heard a heartbeat as strong as that one. She’s going to be a force, like her mother.”

 

A rush of air escapes Katniss’s lips. A whisper that my ears catch.

 

“It’s a girl…”

 

She starts to cry. I know she’s thinking of Prim.

 

The nightmares don’t subside when we return home. But they are tamer, easier for her to recover from. Over and over, she dreams of a little girl with an endless supply of questions. Blue eyes that Katniss says are exactly like mine, but I think are really Prim’s. The dreams no longer revolve around losing our daughter, but of what’s to come when she’s finally here—when she’s older and we can’t avoid the treacherous waters we’d rather not navigate.

 

“We’ll know what to say when she finally asks,” I say. But I think this is every bit an attempt to reassure myself as it is to reassure her. “We’ll have each other. And we’ll have the book. We can tell her in a way that won’t scare her.”

 

She nods and burrows herself in my arms, but I know the fear doesn’t ever really leave her. It doesn’t leave me, either.

 

One day, late in her third trimester, when the baby is kicking wildly and Katniss’s discomfort has swelled to near pain, she reaches for my hand. I turn to look at her, wishing I could share this load with her, wishing I could help bear it somehow, the way I’ve always helped her bear whatever was causing her pain.

 

“I’m scared, Peeta,” she says. “Every day, I’m scared.”

 

“I know,” I whisper. “I am too.”

 

She always tells me that I’m the steady one, but the truth is, my legs falter too. Not just sometimes, but many times. And I need her hand to hold onto, to keep me upright, the way it did aboard the chariot in our first Games. I know for certain I would have toppled over, if it hadn’t been for her firm grip.

 

We’ve proven time and again how strong we both are, and yet in the darkness of the night, we still seek each other’s arms to cling to. I think it will always be this way.

 

“We just have to have a little faith. Just a little faith.”

 

“I ran out of that years ago,” she says. Then softly, she adds, “But what you give me comes the closest to it.”

 

I smile and lean over to kiss her.

 

When she’s pregnant with our son, we choose not to find out his gender. Her fears are more subdued this time—still there, but easier to manage and contain and give a name to. Even her nightmares are more benign in their intensity, and when they get really bad, she heads for the nursery and lifts Hope out of her bed, enveloping her in her arms and whispering over and over, “Do you know how much Mama loves you?”

 

Ben is born in the cool shade of autumn, when the dandelions have long faded into gray, their delicate seeds scattered across the flat stretch of earth, to be resurrected again in the springtime. His voice shatters our eardrums, fierce and powerful, just like his sister’s, and the love that surges inside me is practically bursting through every cell of my body.

 

Much later, when Katniss’s mother has finished cleaning him up and places him in my arms, I lie down beside my exhausted wife, and our daughter crawls into bed to join us. We fall asleep as a family, a unit that will never be broken or compromised.

 

Katniss wakes up some time after and nudges my shoulder. Her mouth curves into a smile that brightens her features immeasurably, radiant in the warm orange glow of the setting sun.

 

“Hey,” she says.

 

“Hey yourself,” I say, returning her smile.

 

“Look what we’ve made.”

 

She shifts slightly, kissing the crown of Hope’s head and Ben’s pink cheek, then lifts her head up to kiss me.

 

“Yeah, how ‘bout that, huh?”

 

“How ‘bout that.” She falls silent for a while, as we both listen to our children’s slow, steady breathing. Then she says, “Peeta…”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I think I found my faith again.”

 

My eyes begin to blur with tears. This has been a long journey. Impossibly arduous and fraught with loss and terror and dark corridors at every turn. But we persevered. And we came out on the other side.

 

 “I think I did, too.”

 

We nestle our children close and lean in towards each other, letting our heads fall to touch, and fall asleep one more time. The days ahead will bring other fears, I know. The winding road is still a long way from being completed, but we will face it together. And we will triumph, as we always have. Victors always triumph.


End file.
